Good Intentions
by AlmostNirvana
Summary: A series of stories focusing on Goyjo's childhood, Jien and his stepmother. Warning, story contains some reference to incest and child abuse. UPDATED and back to regular posting.
1. Chapter 1

Warning- This contains strong language and scenes of incest and child abuse.

Disclaimer- All Saiyuki characters are not my property, but that of Kazuya Minekura. I own nothing.

AN- I have tried to stay as true to the manga possible, but because the manga doesn't give any age difference between Jien and Goyjo, I am going to guess about 10-13 years or so. Also in the manga Goyjo's mother or father are not given names, but to make it a hell of a lot easier for me, I have just picked one for them both. They have come from the top of my head, but I believe Sumire means violet.

This is the third revision of chapter 1, I just can't seem to stop coming back to this one.

Enjoy.

Chapter 1

Long, blond curls tumbled over her face as her head smashed into the table with a dull thud. Her eyelids gave a frantic flicker, her thick, heavy eyelashes sticking to the great smears of mascara dripping steadily down her cheeks; the table rocked with the force, but no pain registered. She was numb and well beyond sensory discomfort.

The rain hammered onto the window pane in short, violent bursts; loud and unpredictable like the rattling of gun fire, but the fierce summer humidity rendered the air sticky and uncomfortable. The weather was unremitting and glistening beads of sweat pealed down her chest, soaking into the lopsided straps of her vest as they hung limply off her slumped shoulders.

She ran a long, slender finger down the length of her glass, her sharp, youkai fingernails making swirling patterns in the condensation formed by sticky breath. A cigarette lay abandoned in the ashtray by her arm; lit, then forgotten and now slowing burning to ash as she sat dumb and captivated behind thick curtains of smoke.

She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and very slowly, lifted her head, her neck painfully stiff from hours fixed in the same position. With unsteady hands, she reached out for the bottle before her once more, but her hands shook and as soon as her fingertips brushed the cool glass surface, it toppled over the edge of the table. It shattered onto the floor with a resounding smash, but it too was soon forgotten.

She shifted her weight again, now unable to find a position to rest her head. It weighed a thousand tonnes and it seemed every muscle in her body was intent on disobeying her. Her stomach clenched tightly, painful and sudden, and she sat erect as the shockwave rolled through her belly and up her spine. The unexpected movement was just too much for her gut to hold. The kitchen blurred and swam, the floor met the ceiling and the kitchen swooned and melted under the unrelenting heat. Her world span and her head pushed back down to the table, it was her axis and gravity took hold. A wave of nausea rolled up her throat and with an ugly wretch she smelt the hot acidic stench dripping down her chin, caught up in her throat so tight, it seemed as if a flame was held below it, prodding and singeing her skin.

"Mom? Mom? Oh shit."

Her eyelids fluttered open to the sound of gently clinking bottles and the sharp wooden scraping of a chair being dragged across the floor.

"Hey! Are you alright? Mom, look at me, are you okay?"

She buried her face deeper into her arms and covered her ears tight with her hands, shying away from the harsh voice. It was fingernails across a chalk board to her sensitive, youkai ears

"Mom, are you awake?"

The voice was softer now, filled with concern and familiarity.

"Ji..Jien?" She reluctantly lifted her head to acknowledge her son, but she peered up at him with the vacant gaze of a drunk and nothing registered in her glassy brown eyes.

"Mom can you hear me? Oh God, how long have you been like this?

Without warning, she felt herself being scooped up into a pair of strong muscled arms and like a new born baby, instinctively cuddled up to his chest. She stared up at him weakly and attempted a smile as she ran her fingers up down his body, playfully burying her head into the soft fabric of his shirt. He smiled back down at her, his deep chestnut eyes full of concern and patience. This scene, it seemed so very familiar.

"Oh, Jien, I lov..." She began before promptly throwing up all over herself and he rescuer.

She landed on the bed with a soft thud and squirmed deep under the covers, pulling the sheets over her head, her eyes peeking playfully over the edges. Her slender form was completely engulfed by the lumpy mattress, devoured by it's grimy stained jaws she curled up into the duvet. Then, like a child, reached up helplessly for her carer.

With unwavering patience, Jien leant down and, with a damp cloth, wiped his mothers face and neck. With surprising quickness, her hand darted from under the covers and grasped a tight hold of his wrist, squeezing hard and pulling his body to her own.

"Oh Jien, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry" She whispered and firmly brought his hand down to her chest, "Please, won't you…just?"

"No, Mom, I can't I..." He tried to pull away, blushing madly, but she clung to him like a vice.

"Please, Jien. You're the only one I love. You're all I have."

She forcefully pulled him into a kiss, which he reluctantly surrendered to. She tasted of smoke and liquor, take-away and her own vomit. He pitied her.

"Please, Jien, I need you."

She reached up to undress him, to peel his greying shirt from his body. She guided her sluggish hands round his shoulders, slowly and as sensually as she could muster before flattening her palms against his chest, her nails digging provocatively into his flesh. Then so very slowly her sharp fingernails worked down across his stomach, round the gentle curves of his hips to open the button of his jeans.

"No, Mom. I can't do this, I have to go. I have to go now." He lied, pulling away from her desperate embrace and in one swift movement yanking his shirt back over his chest. He backed towards the door, trembling fingers fumbling with the buttons of his jeans.

Tears welled in his mothers eyes as she released her hold, letting her arms fall limply back by her sides, disappointment leaking out of every pour. She lay there still for a short while, tension thick in the air between herself and her son as she looked up at him accusingly.

"Why?" She began, her voice faltering as her throat tightened in sorrow. "Why don't you love me Jien?"

Her voice was barely more than as whisper as she turned onto her side, her soft voice becoming muffled by towering pillows. Her tears pattered onto the linen as Jien hurried out of the room.

Closing the door as silently as he was able, Jien wiped the remains of his mothers lipstick off his face and tirelessly began the long but necessary task of cleaning up after her binge. The kitchen was in ruins and the sickly sweet stench of vomit and alcohol clung to the furniture and hung thick in the air. Not entirely unaffected by his mothers reaction, the work took his mind off his own thoughts, he was almost grateful for it. It took almost an hour. No-one would thank him, his mother would probably not recall the evening at all, but he guessed that was not necessarily a bad thing.

Sometime later, he retired to his and his half brothers room, feeling blindly along the wall in the semi-dark, as to not awake Goyjo.

His back objecting loudly as he lowered himself onto the bed, he sighed and ran a hand through his short, dark hair. He cast a look to the sleeping form of his half brother, his long, skinny limbs sprawled out over the top of the blankets. His chest rose and fell softly in a deep and natural sleep, innocent of the occurrences of the evening.

His conviction was not strong and even now he was not sure whether he had done the right thing. The look on his mothers face as he had escaped her grasp, had broken his heart. She had begged for him and again he had refused her. In the morning she would be hung over and angry; he knew it would be Goyjo that would pay the next morning for his reluctance.

He sank into his pillow and attempted to sleep, the taste of her still clinging to his lips.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2, short I realise, the next one should have more plot.

This is the second version of this chapter as it was the weakest I have written, mistakes have all been corrected, God willing.

Unbridled gratitude to everyone who reviewed.

Chapter 2

"Jien. What did my mom look like?"

Jien raised the axe above his head, the thick bands of muscle in his arms straining tight as he brought it swiftly down to crack the log before him neatly in half. He paused and looked down at his younger sibling, lay in the shade against the wall of the house, lazily twiddling a piece of grass between his fingers.

"What do you mean? Just take a look for yourself, she's only in the kitchen." He resumed his work. "I'd be careful though. She's in a pissy mood." He added as another log was halved and tossed aside. He tightened his grip on the axe handle and felt his shoulders crack together painfully.

"No, I mean my real mom, did you ever meet her?" Goyjo counted the years on his fingers with some difficulty, "You were 12 then right?"

"10, Goyjo, 7 years ago I was 10." Jien corrected, grinning, "What? You are 7 and can't even count."

"I'm not stupid, Jien." Goyjo sulked, "So are you gonna tell me or what?"

Jien paused, lowering the axe and cocking an eyebrow.

"What the hell is bringing this on huh? You've never asked before."

Goyjo stood hands on hips.

"Well I am asking now, so are you gonna tell me or just be an ass about it."

Jien lit a cigarette and slung the axe over his shoulder, turning his back on his younger sibling as he one by one kicked the remainder of the logs into the store. He bent the match between his thumb and forefinger and with a turn and a quick flick of his wrist, skilfully flicked it at his half-brother, laughing in triumph as it hit him directly between the eyes. Not amused, Goyjo replied with a scowl, cocking his finger up at him and turning away.

Jien burst into laugher once more.

"Well, if you put it that way, you're not getting a thing outta me. That what you get for being a rude little shit."

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his gloved hand and caught his breath leaning against the wall of the house. He had avoided the question well.

It was the hottest part of the day only the smallest patches of shade remained, in direct sunlight the heat was becoming unbearable. He pealed his t-shirt from his sweat soaked body; it was dripping wet and becoming nothing more than holes, he tossed it away gladly into the long grass.

It was another 5 minutes before he heard the small voice of Goyjo and felt his gaze burning into the back of his skull.

"Please, Jien."

Goyjo ran a hand through the length of his hair, shaggy and unkempt, brushing against his shoulders. His face went bright red to match his scarlet mane.

"I just wanna know okay?…." He mumbled before trailing off, clearly embarrassed.

Jien inhaled deeply on his cigarette and blew a flawed smoke ring, considering the dilemma before he finally spoke.

"She was a real nice lady, real nice."

Pause.

"And?"

"And what?"

"Come on, you have to have more details than that."

"Oh, well…. I only met her a few times, you know, but she was pretty. Beautiful even, tall and kinda exotic looking." Goyjo's eyes brightened and knelt back down on the damp grass, clearly enthralled.

"She had this beautiful long, dark hair down to her ass, poker straight and the eyes to match. She wasn't from around here, she came from somewhere down south, near the coast.

Goyjo opened his mouth to speak but was quickly cut off.

"And no, before you ask me, I don't know where, so pipe down and let me finish."

He took another deep drag on his cigarette and continued on the exhale. "She was classy too, had a real good up-bringing, big house, education and all that shit."

Goyjo ate up his half-brothers words and, now sat up, he hugged his knees tightly; his scarlet eyes peeking from over the rips in his jeans, goading him to continue. Jien scratched his chin absentmindedly, before slowly lowering himself onto the grass by his brothers side.

" She had a good heart, kind, but wasn't about to take any shit from anyone, even when she met dad. She was real tough as well, could pack a pretty mean punch if she had to. She was proud to be seen with him, dad, I mean, even though she was human and he was youkai. That didn't matter to her." He grinned ruefully. "I guess she didn't know that dad was already married, she was an honest lady and wouldn't have been with him otherwise."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Don't you know anymore?"

"Hey, come on, your lucky I know this much anyway, I only knew her for a couple of weeks remember. Before, well, you know." He trailed off, not wanting to make the obvious statement.

"She died."

It wasn't a question.

They sat it silence, the harsh midday sun burning their noses and shoulders. Goyjo shaded his eyes and leant back onto the grass, the smoke from his half-brothers cigarette blowing into his eyes and making them water.

"Jien?" He began,

"Yeah?"

"If my _real_ mom was still alive, do you think she would like me?"

"Oh yeah, of course."

Goyjo frowned, still perplexed.

"Even when I'm a total pain in the ass?"

"Yeah, Why not. Your real mom has to look out for you, its in their chemistry."

Jien took a deep inhale as he approached the filter of his cigarette, filling the silence after the awkward question and his unsatisfactory answer. What kind of thing was that to say to his brother? The question had been unexpected and he wished he could have said something more comforting. He wasn't good in these kind of moments.

He smiled weakly banging on his chest to stop the burning in the back of his throat as the red hot end of the cigarette closed in on his lips.

"You mom, well, she was a decent lady, you know. She _did _want to have you."

Jien pulled his brother into a one armed hug, ruffling his hair roughly trying to lighten the mood. Goyjo smiled broadly up at his half-brother, drawing his hair behind his ears.

"I'm glad you told me Jien. Even though I don't look it, I'm glad I know about her."

"Yeah. No problem."

Jien stubbed his cigarette out in the damp grass and hated himself intensely for being such an incorrigible liar.

But at least the lie had done his younger sibling some good, five minutes later Goyjo was already dozing off in the afternoon sun, tranquil and silent.

A nasty cut above his eye had spilt through the ugly scab and a long crimson streak ran over his eyebrow and along his temple, droplets staining the grass blood red. A deep purple bruise lay along his sharp cheekbones, it looked painful and tender and still not fully developed; about the size of a fist, it dominated his features. It was recently inflicted, but Goyjo had not spoke a word concerning it.

The unsavoury purples and yellows were becoming a constant feature, behind a crimson curtain, fresh cuts and scrapes appeared daily. It seemed the worst thing about Goyjos injuries was that Jien was starting to get used to them.

Jien patted his half brothers hair down flat and leant back against the wall himself.

He hadn't known Goyjo's birth mother anymore than Goyjo did himself.

He closed his eyes and ran a hand through his sweat drenched hair.

Good intentions didn't count for shit.


	3. Chapter 3

Okay here is a nice long chapter (hardly any dialogue, lots of plot) in return for ignoring this fic for so long. I hope you forgive me.

This is the second version of this chapter, thank you to the person who pointed out the mistakes. Thank you for all the reviews.

Chapter 3

Jien awoke to the sight of his mother on her knees by his fathers restless form. Her forehead was pressed hard into the flooring, her lips moved silently and in desperation. Long, wavy curls had broke free of their bonds, unbrushed and wild after many sleepless nights and they hid her tightly shut eyes as she frowned in deep concentration.

She was praying.

The 10 year old Jien watched his mother timidly from the chair in which he had spent the night. He had point blank refused to go to bed after his fathers entrance as his mother instructed, but now she was too busy nursing her husband to be angry with him.

Jien had wanted to help in some way, but all he did, all he could do, was watch as his mother call an absent doctor periodically; between mopping her patient's forehead, feeding and making him as comfortable as possible. Now, in the early hours of the morning she had stopped frantically dashing about with bowls of hot soup and cool towels and given up on trying to get her husband to answer her. He was caught in fevered dreams, his eyes only flickering open every so often with painful coughing, revealing dark blue eyes cloudy and without the recognition his wife desperately hoped for. His temperature was burning hot, although Sumire could not get the exactly height of the fever, the doctor was not in and she has nothing but food, painkillers and her own two hands to ease her husbands cries.

She was frightened and this she would admit even to herself. His breathing grew lighter; shallow and strained. The wheezing all came from his lungs, she guessed it was pneumonia, but she had no way of knowing and no way of taking action. What could she do? Her own husband, the man she loved, was dying and all she could do was watch.

Jien had never seen his mother pray, she spoke about Gods in only half hearted curses, not really believing they were there and his father had never believed in anything any more sanctimonious than begging for luck on his betting slips. In consequence, he himself had little faith in what he could not see. Seeing his mother prostrated in desperation seemed wrong, almost dirty, like he was witnessing some wholly private moment he wasn't meant to see.

Jien knew his father would die, his mother was praying for a miracle, but he felt sure that the following morning his father wouldn't wake up from his fevered dreams. He felt more than a little ashamed for not being more upset as his father lay on his death bed, they had always had a cheerful yet distant relationship, not seeing each other often, but still enjoying each others company. He was surprised and confused not to feel any terrible sadness. The true pull on his heart went to his mother. He had watched silently as she had spent an over night vigil by his fathers side and had heard her sobbing where she thought he could not hear. As far as he had been aware his mother was strong and fearless, she did not cry.

Sha Ren, his father, had been lying on their couch since he had burst through the door the night before, soaked to the skin and his eyes wild with fever. It had been around 11:00 at night when Jien awoke to hear his mother frantically heaving his father's dead weight over to the couch, trying to remove his dripping wet clothing and dry him off all at the same time. She roughly pulled the bundle he clung so close to his chest, out of his arms and almost threw it aside, until of course she felt it wriggle

In her arms, wrapped in layer upon layer of blankets, was a baby. Barely a month old, it had slept the journey to their house in sweet dreams, apparently untouched by icy autumn rain. Sumire's eyes were wide with shock as she unwrapped the baby and found herself staring into a pair of wide, blood red eyes. Soft tears ran down her face before gently placing the bundle on the floor and focusing her efforts back on her husband.

In snippets and moans, Ren told Sumire about his affair and the death of Goyjo's mother. He didn't beg for forgiveness, he was frank Her told her everything. He had spent the night before in the gutter, after a drinking binge lasting days. He knew he was sick, he said he thought he was dying. This was said with no great sadness, he had brought the baby to the safest place he could think of.

"His name is Goyjo." He began, his confession interrupted by a blinding pain in his stomach, he looked up at his wife, eyes full of the same warmth and devotion she had always imaged he had for her. She stroked his hair softly. "Please take care of him, Su. No orphanage, please, I remember, I wouldn't wish that on anyone let alone my own son."

Sumire flinched at these words and more tears followed as Ren began a coughing fit, his whole body rocking as he hacked out phlegm and blood. He smiled up at her weakly, the same roguish smile glinting behind crackled bloody lips.

They turned out to be Ren's last words, the last coherent ones in any case. For the rest of his hours he would be writhing in agony as his stomach wrenched and his eyes turned glassy and dead with fever.

Sumire stayed by his side for the night and the following day, her hand desperately clutching to his. So intensely her knuckles turned white and her face red with tears and anguish.

He passed out at 6:00pm, his fevered curses and cries silenced.

By 2:00am he was dead.

For the first time since he had arrived, Goyjo began to cry. Weary, Sumire filled Jien's old bottle with milk and began the thankless task of caring for the infant, the obligation that would last for years. Passive and unresponsive Sumire held the baby at arms length when possible, silent and cold she felt nothing but her broken heart throbbing in her chest.

There had been no love when she looked into Goyjos eyes. There never would be.

Sha Ren met Aniko in late April a little more than 8 months before Goyjo turned up on Jiens doorstep. Aniko was not her real name, but it was what she was generally known as to the male population of the town, her real name was not of importance for no one had ever taken the time to ask and even then, she would not have told. She was known as a whore, a reputation not entirely undeserved except for the fact that she did not except money for the time she spent on her back. For Aniko it was always about pleasure and she sought it in abundance.

Her own origins were also unknown to anyone, even those who knew her for longer than a quick one against the wall. One day she had just come into town, found lodging and that was that. This was not unusual, a vast collection of waifs and strays littered the streets and the cheapest housing, looking for work which did not exist or just waiting to pass through onto the next small town through the hills. No one knew her story, if, in fact, she had one to tell, and now no one would know, as she died more alone then she deserved.

Aesthetically, she was decidedly average. Middle sized, in both height and weight with short brown hair with light brown eyes, both the colour of milky mocha. She had a wild smile, and her eyes showed deep crows feet when she laughed, which itself, was loud and hearty. Her legs, however, rather than her face, was what attracted Sha Ren and many other men; they were slim and smooth and tapered perfectly down from her ass, which she would consciously swing in tight circles as she walked. Needless to say, she had the rack to match.

Fiery and flirtatious, Ren and Aniko's affair was short lived, one night of passion after a night of uncontrolled drinking; but that was all it took. They parted without words, neither with much regret. They had both got what they wanted and slipped away satisfied.

Why they had done it would remain a mystery in itself, when Ren had a wife and a young boy at home and Aniko had the pick of any of the human men in the town, both single and otherwise. Union between youkai and human is a taboo, not meant to be for reasons both medical and from centuries of superstition. Not to say that humans and youkai don't give in to temptation, taboo or not, affairs are more common than the public are more likely to admit. Pregnancy however is another matter, its rare, very rare, and it's even less common for the woman to give birth. The human or youkai body often rejects the mixed child and miscarriages and complications are often the end of them both. Why this happens, no one knows exactly, medically that is. The strongest superstition is that a child of taboo is bad luck, and this is not hard to believe with the amount of shame that befalls the mother, if she survives both the pregnancy and childbirth. Intercourse between the two races is forbidden and that starts the innocent child on the worst footing ever, some ending up in orphanages, to the few places that will take them in without fear of disaster or prejudice, but more often they live on the streets. This was the legacy Goyjo would have to bear for his parents carelessness.

Aniko became pregnant and gave birth in November, more than a month before she was due. She burst into the local doctors office, drenched and sticky with blood and fluid, cursing the child, cursing the Gods but cursing Sha Ren loudest of all.

The contractions lasted for 18 hours and were filled with wretched tears, death threats and blood curdling screams as the doctor fought for both Anikos and the baby's lives.

Goyjo was born drenched in pain, sweat and blood, screaming heartily from his tiny lungs as his mother sobbed into her hands. He was a tiny 4 lbs 2oz, but perfectly healthy for his size. His name, Goyjo, was eventually given to him by the visiting doctor at the time, as even weeks after the birth his mother refused to hold or even look at her child. She would only cry out of shame and tell the doctor desperately that she didn't want her baby, pushing him away again and again as he approached her with her own flesh and blood.

Ren had not known about the pregnancy, but at the time was not living with his family. After extensive arguments with Sumire, he had moved into a small Inn a few miles from home to wait out his wife's anger far from where she could hurl crockery at him.

It was entire surprise when Goyjo turned up in the doctors arms at his doorstep. Ren took to the child, not having much faith in anything, let alone superstition. He was a youkai with, perhaps, too many faults, but it cannot be said that his heart wasn't in the right place as he took responsibility for his son without question or argument. He saw himself in the boys face, despite the burning scarlet of his eyes and hair, and knew what is was like not to be wanted. Nevertheless, it was a clumsy arrangement, he tentatively dealt with Goyjo, without having the slightest clue how to properly care for him. He left Goyjo alone often, as he could get no one to take him for the days when he had to work. Eventually he took time off, at expense of his own employment, but after 4 days of this he soon found himself out of work. There was always someone begging for his job in this town, someone without a child to care for, willing to work for almost nothing.

Aniko had died, alone in her room after an infection had got into her blood stream. She had not left her bed since the birth and refused all food or medicine since, ignoring both the doctors and Ren's visits. Literally, she wasted away, the illness eating her away from the inside as she starved her withered body. Her shapely limbs now lay like fragile twigs, as her flesh began to discolour and fever took her mind far away from her depression. She believed she would die after Goyjo was born, she believed in the inescapable bad luck that she had brought upon herself, she believed it without question. One thing was correct however, she would die, but not before she suffered for weeks, caught inside her own shame and sorrow. By the time the doctor got the authorities to intervene, it was too late, her body already looked like that of a skeleton, Ren could not pay for a funeral and so she went to rest in an unmarked paupers grave. It grew wild and untended, then forgotten, even in death she never was reunited with her son for her grave remained unvisited.

Goyjo's mother was human, that was all the truth Jien had ever heard about Goyjo's origins, except of course that she was dead; a fact that never failed to comfort his own mother, who said it with relish whenever asked.

Thankyou. Please review.


	4. Chapter 4

This is getting harder and harder to write. I suppose I am desperately trying to give Goyjo's mother a little depth and it is taking a lot longer than I thought. I wanted to provide a gradient of craziness for her to slip into. I know this is supposed to be a Goyjo fic, and although he hasn't had much screen time yet just wait, I have lots planned.

Revised Version.

Thank you for all the kind reviews. Sorry for the wait, I have another chest infection plus tonsillitis and I feel lousy. Yeah I know, excuses, excuses. Just enjoy the fic.

Chapter 4

Sumire held the child at arms length, her hands hooked underneath his shoulders, her fingers curled icily round the back of his head. Goyjo simply stared across the distance between then, his limbs jiggling wildly in delight, his round, baby face crinkled into a smile as he gurgled and cooed, enjoying the extra attention.

Her night dress fluttered around her knees in the light wind; the frayed, greying corners slowly edging up her thighs. The mid morning air was crisp and pleasant and promised sunshine by midday. Sumire could already feel the first rays of sunlight beating onto her shoulder blades as cloud parted and blue sky broke its way through. Her feet were bare, but the earth beneath her was soft, warm and well weathered, she wriggled her toes in the dirt before tentatively stepping forward onto the topmost step.

The way down to the road consisted of 55 steps of cut granite stone, large and ceremonious they curled up towards Sumires home, before turning off and leading to nothing but untameable weeds and dried out wasteland. They had been here long before her house had been built, decades, most likely, centuries of wear had beaten down their smooth surface. Grandeur diminished, they were rough and jagged, patches of grass sprouting from unlikely cracks and crumbling rock rounding the dulled edges.

A safety hazard for as long as she could remember, she remembered when she had fallen down the stairs herself. Over loaded with a weeks worth of laundry, she had slipped on the back of her dress just under halfway down. Head over heals she had toppled, clothes and sheets leaving a starched, white trail over the steps, to where she lay, face first in the dust by the side of the road. Relatively unharmed, but crying out in shock, she remembered the way Ren had come dashing out of the house, half dressed, leaping two steps at a time, his body still dripping wet from the shower. He had scooped her up in his arms so gently, his expression dark with concern, drips of water running down his nose and onto her own. Without a word he had carried her back to the house, placed her on the couch and proceeded to wait on her hand and foot for the whole day; his long, gentle fingers fumbling as he made a poor yet well meant mess of bandaging her ankle.

Why couldn't have things stayed so perfect, why couldn't she hold onto that picture of her husband, the caring, handsome man she thought she had married. Why couldn't see remember his smile, that sheepish, devil may care grin. His long dark brown tumbling over her body; his prickly five o clock shadow kisses scratching her face after he returned home from work.

Her wedding day only existed in the photograph beside her bed, at only 16 the teenage marriage now seemed cliché. But it had been so right, they had both been so sure, so convinced of their love, there had never been a shadow of a doubt that they were meant to be together. How naive they both looked, her in her second hand gown; she had fitted it herself and it hung off her teenage frame awkwardly, her stomach protruding in a state of glowing pregnancy. Her veil hung lop-sided, but beneath it a unfamiliar, fresh faced youngster grinned wildly. On her right stood Ren, even at 16 he stood at a gangly 6'2, his greying suit not nearly concealing his socks and the sleeves exposing his wrists. His arms slyly wrapped round his blushing bride, resting on her ass sheepishly.

They had nothing, Sumire had not heard from her parents since she was 'knocked up' (their words, not her own) and went on to marry Ren. A young man whom they were convinced was not up to Sumires standard, they showed this disapproval by disowning their daughter and lost more in this stubbornness than they had bargained for. They both died in the 5 years that followed; a fact that caused their daughter minimum amount of grief. Ren had no family himself, orphaned young and desperate to escape the orphanage which he so intensely despised, he ran away at the earliest opportunity. They both ended up penniless, but so very much in love and that had counted for so much.

Pictures of that happiness seemed so far away, so weak and diluted, she had began to wonder if the man she knew had only existed in dreams.

Now all she could focus on was hurt in their marriage, the lies, the arguments and the infidelity. She could see the furious, drunken face that came through the door at 4 in the morning, dripping wet and stinking of beer and sex. Lipstick on his collar, his wallet empty. She cold so easily picture the cold, stony expression Ren had worn as he read the morning paper the morning after a fight, the black eye he had picked up after the saucepan, meant for the space above his head, had hit him square in the face. Then the bitterness, that lasted for weeks, months, the anger that radiated as they sat down for the evening meal, as Ren sipped his coffee silently and the prepared food remained untouched. So many problems, so much left unresolved. Regret washed over her.

Clearer than anything, the image of her husband, writhing on the couch, his face sticky with sweat and fever, his teeth clenched in delirium. When it had come down to it, she had not been able to swoop down upon Ren and save him. His last words rang in her ears; words that should have been devoted to love, to their marriage, to herself; they should have been a comfort to her, he should have told her how much he had really cared, how much he would miss them both. Words straight out of a romance novel, the bittersweet end of a tragedy. Instead, she had received news of Sha Rens second life, his women. The whores who he had spent his nights with, the affairs and deceit of over 10 years of marriage. Hatred stirred up in her heart, she had always been faithful to Ren. Always. Infidelity had never even played upon her mind. Yet the moments that had rightfully been hers had been taken from her and her son, Ren's last goodbyes, stolen indefinitely by that human bitch and of course, the miserable little half breed she now held in her arms.

Goyjo's weight was beginning to pull on her arms, a grinding pain had lodged itself in the creases of her elbows. How easy it would be to just to let go, release the strain and just let the child fall to his death. It would be over quickly, his infantile mind would be dead before pain had a chance to register. His tiny bones would shatter on sharp stone slabs, his head, covered with such soft, red hair, would crack open and spilt on jagged edges. And that would be that.

The road before her remained as deserted as it always had been. No one would witness the act, Jien was out with his friends and the nearby houses had no view of her home, the embankment was surrounded by thick foliage. But even so, who would care? Names and faces ran through her head, but she couldn't think of one person who would mind if some orphan half breed got what was coming to him. The town had shown their disapproval immediately and she couldn't ignore the piecing looks, whispers and shame resting on her heart. It wasn't fair, it wasn't her fault, but she was the last person involved in the whole messy predicament who was still alive and so caring for the child rested on her. If it were not for Rens dying words, Goyjo would have been out of the house in a second, rotting in some far away orphanage. But how could she ignore her dead husbands most intensive want for his son, she could not refuse his final request. She could not bring herself to do it, the whole affair filled her with guilt. So now it came down to murder, and the possibility became to seem more attractive by the second.

It was if she could feel the bad luck radiating from his body, shooting up her arms and resting in her chest, tainting her, making her feel dirty. Her fingers tensed, sick excitement pounding through her aching arms. One action, one fatal 'accident' would end it all, all her worries and stress could be distilled with the death of the child. She slowly let his blanket slip out of her grip….

"Mom?"

Startled, she snatched Goyjo instinctively back from the drop.

"Mom? What are you doing" Jien came running up embankment, his face spotted with dirt and curled in a bemused expression.

"Just enjoying the sunshine while it lasts." She blurted out, trying desperately to appear casual, but in her chest her heart was racing. She felt her face go red and fumbled in her pocket for her cigarettes, but found nothing but loose change in her dressing gown pocket. What had she been thinking of? Was she really that cruel, that she would come so close to murdering an infant in cold blood? Tears were beginning to well up in her eyes, but she blinked them back fiercely.

Smiling at her son, she coolly rocked Goyjo in her arms and started back into the house. How lucky it had been for Jien to appear just at that moment, he had saved her from doing something truly unforgivable. No wonder Ren's affections had begun the wane years ago, no wonder he had left her for weeks on end, no wonder he had other women. The only question left was how could he have borne such a icy, evil bitch for so long. She felt a cold lump in her throat.

She needed a cigarette, she needed a glass of wine. She needed something.

"Its gonna be pretty cool having a little brother." Jien exclaimed, running up to his mothers side.

"Half-brother Jien," She corrected, "He isn't your real brother."

"Yeah, but still." He trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck nervously as he noticed his mothers change in tone and realising he had nothing else to say.

Jien hung back, before slipping away into down the steps and back into the street. Sumire, however, didn't seem to notice, she continued, stony faced, into the house.

Goyjo was already drifting off into sleep, peacefully unaware that he had been in any danger at all.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 and nothing even resembling a plot has appeared.

The previous chapters have all been re-written, nothing drastic, but there were a few mistakes to correct.

This one is decidedly short and full of dialogue, my excuse remains the same, I am still ill and surly.

Please read and review.

Chapter 5

Jien opened the door carefully, easing it open slowly, inch by inch, as to not make the hinge creak and betray his entrance. He tiptoed across the wood flooring, instinctively checking his pockets for anything suspicious or illegal in case his mother happened to go through his jacket. He systematically patted himself down. Nothing in his jeans, but he came across a half an un-smokable blunt in his front shirt pocket hidden along with half a pack of camels. Nothing he couldn't safely hide from his mother. Though he admitted, considering the time at night, she was probably too spaced out herself to be even concerned about his misadventures. She was most likely in bed, sleeping off the few too many glasses of wine she was routinely throwing herself into. Relaxing at little, he headed towards the bedroom door before he stopped suddenly, realising he was not alone.

He tensed, unnerved. He peered into the far corner of the room over to the small shadowed figure stood facing the corner.

"Goyjo?" He whispered, squinting through the semi dark before approaching cautiously.

The figure nodded wildly but did not turn to face him.

"What in the hell are you doing stood in the dark?"

Goyjo turned round and pressed his finger to his lips, indicating silence and snapped his head back to its original possession.

"What are you doing here at this time of night?" He came up to his brother and crouched down to his level, taking hold of his shoulders more roughly than he had meant to. "Why aren't you in bed?"

The four year old flinched, glanced around the room nervously and then whispered,

"Mom said I gotta stay here."

"Why?"

Goyjo didn't answer.

"Well how long have you been stood here?"

Goyjo glanced up at the clock, squinting up in the poor light, his lips moving silently for a moment before he finally admitted..

"I dunno Jien, I can't tell the time."

"Okay, okay." Jien sighed, "Do you know where mom is then?"

His half brother pointed to the kitchen door and sure enough, Jien noticed a thin crack of light peeking out from underneath it. So much for remaining unnoticed.

"Jien?"

His mothers voice called faintly from the other room and Goyjo's head snapped back round to face the wall immediately. Jien rose back onto his feet.

"Jien is that you?" His mothers voice repeated, this time more alarmed and shrill. There was no use in pretending he didn't hear her.

"Yeah mom, its only me." He left his sibling where he stood and swung open the kitchen door.

"Where have you been then?" She began coldly, taking a long drag of her cigarette and sharply flicking her ash onto the floor.

"Out." He answered, hanging on the door frame, not wanting to be brought into conversation in case she smelt the fags (among other things) on his clothes.

"Out where?"

Jien shrugged.

"Just out. I went into town with some friends." He figured the less he revealed about his nightly whereabouts the less likely he would screw up and trip over his own lies. His mother however didn't pry any further, she instead leant back on her chair and took a sip of wine.

"Do you want a drink?"

Jien frowned, suspicious, unable to decide whether she was trying to catch him out or whether her offer was indeed sincere.

"Yeah sure,"

"Wine, beer or cider?"

"Beer?"

She tossed him a beer from the fridge before slumping herself back on her chair.

"There you go." She smiled, amused at his surprised expression. "Sit down, talk to your mother. I feel like I haven't seen you in ages."

Jien obliged, taking the seat opposite her. From this point it was pretty obvious his mother was drunk, her smile was too wide, her cheeks glowed rosy with colour. The whole way she composed herself made it all too apparent,. He took a swig of beer, feeling uncomfortable, but grimaced at the taste, it was 'lite' and was as weak as cats piss.

They found themselves at a loss, neither one knowing what to say. Sumire went for another cigarette but found the packet empty.

"Shit." She felt her pockets for another pack but found she had none. She stared across at her son, almost examining him, before exclaiming. "Lend your mother a fag, Jien. I'm desperate here."

Fainting innocence Jien began to deny that he smoked at all but was quickly interrupted by his mothers lazy drawl.

"Don't take me for a fool, I know you smoke, Jien. You come home stinking of them every night. Hand them over."

Reluctantly Jien pealed a cigarette from the pack.

"Thanks." She hastily lit up and took a deep inhale before exclaiming, "Camels taste like shit."

"Yeah," He smiled weakly as his mother let out a wry chuckle. Once again he couldn't think of anything to say, the whole situation was awkward. " Hey Mom, how long has Goyjo been stood out there?

"Hm?"

"Goyjo is out in the hall and says you told him to."

"Oh, yes I did."

Pause

"Well, its nearly 2:00 in the morning, how long has he been there?"

"God, I don't know." She replied, her voice becoming more agitated.

"Well what did he do?"

"What do you mean?"

Jien felt himself loosing his patience.

"Jien, don't look at me like that." She leant forward, placing her glass on the table. "You don't understand."

"What don't I understand huh?" Jien stood, suddenly furious, "For Gods sake, he's not even five years old yet and your already knocking him around . He's just a kid."

Silence.

Sumire buried her head in her hands.

"You hate me don't you?"

"What? No Mom I…"

"You do." She interrupted, bloodshot eyes appearing through her fingertips, "I know you do."

"Mom I don't hate you, its just…"

She reached out and grasped his hand, her eyes full of tears.

"You don't understand. His eyes, his hair. Oh God, I'm not a monster Jien. I can't explain it. I just hate him Jien, I hate him so much. His face reminds me so much of your father and I can't stand it. I can't deal with him anymore."

"Mom?" he gently pulled he away from her, "Mom you're drunk, you need to go to bed."

She shook her head, inconsolable.

"Mom? Come on," He lifted her from the chair, resting her weight on his own. She was more drunk that he had originally perceived. She buried her face in his shoulder.

"Oh Jien, I don't know what I would do without you. You're the only thing keeping me sane in this house."

Jien returned the embrace, feeling the patter of soft tears seeping through into the his shirt.


	6. Chapter 6

-1A.N. I found half this chapter while cleaning up my hard drive and it renewed my interest in the story I had been planning. I have reposted all previous chapters, making some obvious improvements.

Enjoy

Chapter 6

A large dinosaur band aid, proudly picked out but Goyjo himself, half concealed the cut above his left eye. The gash wasn't especially deep but was at least a good couple of inches wide, wide enough to peek over the edges of the wickedly grinning, crudely drawn, bright blue t-rex and bury itself deep into Goyjo's hairline. Despite it's relative shallowness it had bled long trails of crimson down the bridge of Goyjo's nose and left a thick, congealed mess in his left eyebrow. Meeting the neighbouring bruise by his eye, the damage looked, admittedly, worst than it actually was. It would only take a little ice for the swelling, couple of aspirin, maybe a band aid here and there and Goyjo would none the worse. Sumire wrung her hands nervously, cursing under her shallow breath.

The clock hung high on the kitchen wall said 5:30. How long would she have to hide the evidence?

What in the world would Jien say?

On Goyjo's part, the experience was a great deal less worrying. Like children can do, the hysteria of the afternoon had conceded as soon the atmosphere had calmed, his face still beetroot red from the aftermath of tears but his expression portrayed no particular upset. The pain had now entirely subsided, thanks exclusively to the generous handful of aspirin he had dutifully swallowed; the powdery, bone white capsules offered up on his step-mothers trembling, out stretched palm. Heavily overdosed for his size, a vague blurriness clouded his vision. As he brushed his fingers against the gaudy blue and green plastic he could feel the blood welling up inside the seal. The thought of his head splitting open was a terrifying one, so he let his hand drop limply back into his lap, a leftover tear running down his face unexpectedly. He wiped it away, surprised, the sudden movement making him blink hard with dizziness, he didn't feel any need to cry again.

For the first time he could remember, for the first time in what may have been forever, his step mother had pulled him unto her lap and let him sit there.

He sat fairly awkwardly, far from her body, barely touching, but still he wasn't about to complain. He could feel her sharp knees digging into the backs of his legs and the jagged movement of her limbs as she worked around him, sticking plasters where appropriate and holding ice on his swollen and, to be discovered later, broken wrist. She smelt of an enticing mixture of peach, smoke and sweat, a sickly sweet smell which he couldn't help himself generously inhale whenever he thought she wasn't looking.

His eyes drifted down to his right wrist, half concealed with a bag of frozen peas, blues and purples edging wider up his hand and further down his arm. It had hurt, real bad, but not anymore. Just a dull ache remained beneath the tingling. All he could think of now was showing his war wound to off to Jien when he got home, ready to milk his sympathy for all its worth.

His wrinkled his nose as his mother unscrewed the iodine and the stench hit, it stung his nostrils and made his eyes well up with water.

Sumire clamped the clump of cotton wool to the neck of the bottle, generously soaking it through before bringing it to a shallow graze by his left ear. Almost instinctively he flinched away, screwing up his eyes tight, half heartedly avoiding her cotton wool aim. She sighed, frustrated and halted her dabbing. For a moment her mind was cast back to when Jien was this small and her parenting had been a the same well-meaning mixture of instinct and guesswork.

Looking down to Goyjo there was none of the same urgency, the only concern-what Jien would have to say on his return. There was something lacking, she realised with some resignation, something wholly intrinsic that was missing.

But God, he looked so frightened.

She took a firm hold of Goyjo's chin and brought his gaze to meet her own, his eyes widened and Sumire could feel him stiffen and brace himself beneath is grip. His step-mothers hands brushed softly against his skin, cooler and gentler than he ever imagined she could be. Her free hand slid round the side of his face, stoking the sensitive flesh behind his ear, comforting as she applied the antiseptic to the various scrapes that scattered his upper body.

"There." She conceded, realising that there was little else she could do to hide the evidence of the afternoon.

She bought her hands away and began to gather up the wrinkled balls of cotton wool, the slithers of plastic from the backs of the band aids, the bag of frozen peas. With a brisk movement she stood, Goyjo sliding off her lap with some surprise. Surely it wasn't so hard to pretend, to play this role of mother that she had been forced so suddenly into, to grit her teeth, to just get on with the decade sentence she had been handed. She firmly reminded herself that next time she would be able to control her temper. She must.

Goyjo stood with one hand on the kitchen table to steady himself. His young face curled up in an expression of severe concentration, it aged him far beyond his 5 years.

Then, without warning and with more courage than he could and would ever muster again, he leapt forward and wrapped his arms round her frame, taking her off balance and propelling her backwards against the kitchen table.

He held his breath, eyes screwed tight, teeth gritted, his bad arm beginning to scream with the pain of sudden exertion but he couldn't bare to let go knowing that in any moment she would harshly pull away, scold him, perhaps knock him down. He was prepared, but not for the slow movement of angular arms creeping softly around his shoulders and slithering down his back. Returning the embrace.

She patted his back once, twice; then pulled away. The memory ends there for a 10 year old Goyjo who, even 5 years down the line can recall the incident with disturbing clarity. Blows hard enough to shatter bone, the strong clinical stench of iodine that numbed the insides of his nostrils, a sharp familiar odour mixed with the smoky aroma of a dish he can't remember, the spilled contents of the boiling pot that had sparked the violent punishment in the first place.

At 10 years old he is tragically old enough to know that his step-mother, yet the only mother he will ever know, hates him more than he can realise and for reasons both unfair and inexpressible. But he will not yet be old enough to stop maybe hoping that he can win her affections. A conquest, as futile as any that will come after, a prize that can't be won. Re-lived again and again, creeping through into adulthood with a different face, a new name.

Just a child, he will sit, back slumped against the wall, nursing some injury or another, a black eye, a handful of fine, red scratches, long thin welts from the flat side of a belt. He will screw his eyes up tight, clenching growing fists and remembering this small act of kindness. Half remembered, a flickering memory that sprouts a thousand daydreams of her smooth cool hands holding his face, her softened gaze, an isolated moment of calm.


	7. Chapter 7

-1A.N Apologies, this chapter took longer to write than I thought, still, I think it has to be my favourite so far.

Thank you for the kind reviews

Chapter 7

Heavy with the exhaustion of a solid, 10 hour shift, Jien stepped down from the raised porch of the bar with his neck craned to the sky, rinsed by the icy drops of the mid-morning rain. Cold for the time of year, the wind was harsh and persistent; the rain mingled with the beads of sweat gathering by his hairline and dripped down his nose with satisfying freshness.

He had spent the last half hour of the morning with 'friends' from his current job; men not unlike himself who worked more hours of the week than they slept. After his late night shift and the realisation that he would soon have to return home to check on his mother, the easy going laughter that permeated the walls of the bar was a much-needed release. He lit a cigarette, inhaled long and deep, then shoved his remaining hand into his jacket pocket, stepping with a splash into the muddy street.

As he left, the men he had been drinking with had begun to discuss him warily. If they had been asked what they thought about Sha Jien the response would have been mostly good. Friendly enough, seems a good guy, can enjoy a good joke, can handle his beer. But yet, when they think long and hard, there seems to be something terribly wrong with the teenager that works these long, desperate hours, who never seems to want to go home. When the evening comes, shovel still in hand, he lingers, he is always last to leave, a pale unreflecting figure on the shimmering landscape.

At 18 years old, Jien worked 7 days a week, the hours varied, he took whatever he could manage to get.

As far as he was concerned, as long as the money was good, there was little he wouldn't end up doing. This philosophy led him to offers for work that were less than scrupulous. The highlights so far consisted of a two week skint transporting of illegal weaponry from a dealer in the nearest port north, to a collector passing through on his escape from the country. A job that required more muscle that it advertised; the first exhilarating rush of real criminal activity had a sixteen year old Jien thirsty for another taste. Once or twice, he had been hired for the packing and distribution of bootleg porn (a personal favourite that had more perks than one would expect.) Now and again, he dabbled in light burglary, which was distinctly less rewarding as the citizens populating the town were already dirt-poor and had nothing worth stealing anyhow.

These though were the more exciting and rare opportunities, it was much more likely that for weeks on end the loading and un-loading of crates for transportation occupied his time. Building work, demolition, landscaping. Hard physical labour. Although in truth, he rarely struggled.

Boredom proved to be the main problem. It was often lonely work, the shit reception the town received meant that the crackly buzz of a FM radio was poor company. With little to occupy his mind, he threw himself into his work, doing the equivalent of men with twice his size and experience. His was valuable to those he worked for, still he couldn't help but feel as if he was wasted here.

At least it kept him out of the house

As with most of the young men he had grown up alongside, the only real work that he found he was suited to was the manual kind; he had been educated to the maximum the town provided, but with no real academic ambition the skills he had acquired in the classroom were almost solely the practical kind. Despite this, he didn't find the work unbearable; with little physical limitation he rarely struggled with heavy lifting or long hours. A tiny glimmer of the proficiency and strength that will develop in the next five years can be seen now, a level of endurance that will only truly real itself when his survival solely depends on it. But these years of wanderings are too far in the future for the teenager to contemplate. He doesn't know it but, rather than a long term career these years are nothing more than training.

But for the meanwhile, it keeps him out of the house.

Since his father's death, Jien had the responsibility of caring and providing for both his half-brother and his mother, who, before Goyjo's birth had never had an paying occupation and now hadn't the ability to undertake one. The pay was shit, his mother's sake was expensive. It proved a problem.

Though don't feel too sorry for Sha Jien. He works hard, but he plays hard too. When he isn't working he's drinking, he drinks with the same reckless abandon that his father did and the same reckless abandon that Goyjo will soon do. He has frequent and passionate sex with his many lady friends, one of whom he loves, in his own strange way. Home throws the only dark shadow over Jien's life, he can't quite be happy, but who is? He still has some time till it gets truly bad with his mother, the worst it will ever be. The point the point where his hands slide down his mother's tautened stomach and caress her small puckered breasts and holds her trembling…

He's not there yet. But he isn't far off.

To put the pathos of the area into perspective, while not particularly large, it was incredibly condensed; packed between impassable crags and valleys on one side and the lush expanse of thick woodland on the other. There were three ways out of the city; one leading inland, an eight hour walk to the capital; the opposite following a canal route to the westerly port, too far to reach by foot, the way spotted with provincial villages of meagre size. Every other road was a vast tangle of rural footpaths, leading far into the valley basin and soon becoming tracks only passable by experienced travellers. The town was once a vital trade passage, a route that lead straight from the capital to the most lucrative port. It shows.

Before it's significance the town had barely had village status, a poor, secluded farming community living off the land with barely enough success to feed the small population. Relatively untouched, all useable land was flooded into rice paddies, farm houses and warehouses dominated the landscape with little in between. It was a simple place, until an unpredicted earthquake brought a landslide that blocked all usual trade passages from the capital to the port. It was then, two hundred and fifty years ago that this tiny community suddenly became the rest stop for hundreds of thousands of merchants and travellers, tourists and trade.

With importance, so did all the vices of the large cities. A thriving gambling and bootlegging trade, items of variable legality and rarity flowed into the heart of the naïve, farming village; soon came prostitution, forced labour and, unsurprisingly, the wealth of tourism. Hotels sprang up, immigration and wages boomed.

They prospered for a short while.

Like parasites these invaders, through time, they infected and worked their way into the spirit of an untouched way of life until their host shunned the simple way of living that had once sustained them. The small village grew large and profitable, nourished by the milk of the desire and demand that it's importance required.

As the steam engine established itself irrevocably across the horizon, the flow of wealth was suddenly and irrevocably, was called to a halt. Like a waterlogged stream stopped mid-flow, the corruption and vice was left to fester and stagnate in the streets. The infection was too severe and the poverty that was left behind revealed an intrinsically damaged world. One that did not remember how it survived before its period of glory and could only now get by on the leftovers of its trade.

It was a poor place to raise children and a poor place for a child to grow up in.

There were over 70 places a man could get a beer, yet one grossly overcrowded school served children of all ages. Gambling dens with sliding degrees of legality filled basements and rooftops, the rate of murders, rapes, violent crimes had reached a plateaux of alarming regularity, yet the police force was barely mentionable. The medical centre was primitive, doctors visited in a rota, rarely more than three were available to treat the ailments of a booming population. Youkai healers were the most common source of help available, more numerous and of more effective than the visiting human medical professionals. But they charged and telling a good price from a rip-off and an expert from a novice was a lottery, that some went away chronically more worse off than they had arrived in the first place.

With little exception, most of the residential housing was stacked one on top of the other, one or two rooms that served for families of three or four, narrow alleyways separating the blocks by only two or three feet, packed with trash that would never be collected, the sleeping homeless that would probably not awake. In the worst segments, corrugated iron replaced a roof or a wall, in the best, drug lord and import/export businessmen lived in relative luxury, televisions, house help, a spare room, wrought iron gates by the front door. Larger, but poorer single storied houses, that latched onto the town with only dirt footpaths, stood only a couple of hundred yards from the urban centre. They were old farmhouses that had been abandoned when the towns big boom had driven the paddy workers into a new more profitable business. Goyjo grew up in one of these. While containing 3 or four rooms and lightly separated from the nightlife, they were structurally unsound and quite literally falling to pieces. Only half a dozen remained but whether they would still do so when the next earthquake hit was unlikely. They stood as crumbling evidence that the town had once been a simpler place with less worldly residents, more innocent ideals.

A small stone temple sat at the head of the main street, a modest statue of Buddha sat serene at it's helm, damp and neglected. But even this was mostly for show, it backed a serene woodland landscape but contained no monastic order. Empty of life, it was swept for religious holidays and little else.

The walk home was a good 40 minutes, but he could easily double that if he took a "shortcut" through the shrub and rubble that separated the town's main strip from his own small home. It happened to be a diversion that he often found himself taking. A minor earthquake had hit a couple of summers ago damaging most of the farm houses that littered the outskirts of the town, the debris had been weathered by time but had never been shifted. Almost in mourning, the remains, now picked clean, still stood, cupped by a long strip of woodland that stood out from the forest and cut into the south end of town. Yet, during springtime, it wasn't an unpleasant walk especially with the soft, easy sensation of early morning sake in his belly and the cool drops of rain on his bare shoulders.

The sounds of children nearby from the schoolyard cut into his thoughts quite suddenly. He thought briefly about Goyjo and wondered if he had stayed in school today. Making him attend was getting harder by the day, to the point where just this morning Jien had chased, tackled and physically thrown Goyjo into the school grounds with great difficulty and a great deal more of cursing. His teacher had resumed the struggle and forced the boy into the classroom with the kind of heavy headedness that, Jien realised with some resignation, was the only thing that the young boy would behave for.

An 8 year old Goyjo was a difficult thing to handle. He hated school with a passion that had not gone unnoticed by his brother. He avoided it whenever possible, concentrated little and learnt less. The teacher felt no obligation to force any participation from Goyjo but his presence, his ignorance had been established painfully early. He couldn't write, could hardly read.

On the subject of Goyjo, Jien would be particularly quiet. He doubted whether anyone but his closest friends would have been aware that he had a half-brother and he had no desire to advertise the fact around town. Goyjo's presence was uneasily acknowledged by the population, but never accepted.

Goyjo, at 8 years old was a hard thing to describe.

At school he rose hell. He fought, he swore, he ran off whenever the opportunity arose. Often he was physically forced to attend. However, on the rare mornings when Sumire would crawl out of her room before midday, she would blink irritably at the boy and, clutching a handful of blood red hair, shake him hard and demand to know why he wasn't out of the house and in school. When she told him to go, he always went. Clutching a book he couldn't read, he would leave the house and tell himself that he would be real good in school that day, make mom proud of him. But as the long day dragged on, he found himself squinting uselessly at characters he simply couldn't understand, rudimentary arithmetic that made no sense. The 3 years he attended school were always a struggle, he always felt stupid. A feeling, in his adulthood, that never quite left him.

At home Goyjo was quiet.

Though Goyjo rarely ventured into town during the day on his own, for obvious reasons, he roamed the surrounding woodland, wasteland and empty buildings with reckless abandon. When the night loomed in and the shimmer of red that screamed his birthright dimmed out of recognition, he ran through the empty alleys and passageways like a ghostly spirit. He climbed and conquered the twisted, condemned fire escapes, lay on the sooty recline of half tiled roofs, climbed trees in the dark squares, screamed until the dawn went misty with tears and raced like an animal through dying streets.

Then as the sun rose and the brought to light the crimson that lay glistening in his tear-soaked eyes, he lost his courage in the light drenched world and began to pad the long walk home. A trek as strange and inevitable as his nightly escape.

He always went back home.

Jien frowned and ran a hand through his soaking wet hair, he looked to the sky; the cloud had set in more heavily that before, above him it hung grey and oppressive, despite that it was now mid-springtime. Exceptionally strange weather for this time of year. He sighed. The curling, grey plumes predicted a storm within the hour; he subconsciously quickened his pace to where the trees started to provide cover from the downpour, a little deeper into the forest's foliage. Jien noticed with some sadness that the saplings by his feet were getting battered by the force of the gale. As their huge parents stood firm, they held on with the same grit and determination, their under-sized roots desperately clinging to sodden ground where the thick mud meant there was precious little for the tiny plants to hold on to. Despite their flexibility and small size, a few had already been felled, young green branches were tossed and scattered in the wind to be trodden under his iron capped boots. Cut down so young, they stood, inverted in the thick mud, unrecognisable in their deaths. Spindly roots reaching up towards the sky in desperation, grasping for the soil that they had once sat so firmly in.

It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair that the bad weather should come so late in the year. The seasons should have provided mild warmth and gentle tepid rains, good conditions before the humidity and scorching heat of the summer, the wet icy coldness of the winter months. The young plants probably would have survived and by the time the rains came again, be just strong enough to brave the onslaught. A young, green branch gave and snapped under his foot. They had just been unlucky.

By now Jien was half way home, he began to slow his pace.

Jien ground his teeth and fumbled in his pockets for his missing cigarettes. He had decided early on that there seemed to be so much potential in Goyjo but the response from his teacher when they had met briefly, in no less words, was that Goyjo was as thick as shit. But he himself had little interest in his studies at his brother's age and tried not to put too much stock in this prediction; besides, the teachers were over worked, under paid and had more kids running around than they were trained to deal with. Goyjo just needed a little extra help. He resolved to help the kid out if there was something that he couldn't understand at school, if they even gave homework, it wouldn't kill him to sit him down and try and teach him a thing or two.

It was a nice thought.

The more realistic diagnosis was that Goyjo was just dumb, perhaps he had been whacked too many times over the back of the head, Jien thought grimly, and literally had had the sense knocked out of him. He wouldn't have been surprised. He had only been home once or twice this week for as long as he could stand, yet he could tell that the situation was only getting worse.

How soon would it be before it was unmanageable?

Through the loosely scattered trees a noise carried. Jien tensed for a moment, almost alarmed. A cry resounded through the wind, it sounded young, high pitched. It was probably just little kids playing in the undergrowth but he dismissed this when he considered that it was not only pouring with rain but also that, at 10:00 in the morning all the children would probably be in school. He picked up his step but paused again as the crying became louder and more erratic, it was closer to screaming. Jien felt a twinge of panic in his gut, assaults were not uncommon in the woodland outskirts, it was very possible someone was being robbed or worse. A detour seemed an attractive prospect even if it was a false alarm. He veered off to the left, sharp youkai ears straining to pick up the direction of the cries amongst the pouring rain.

The damage to the kid's face was pretty bad, not helped by the caked mud smeared over his features. But even in a glance Jien could tell that his nose had definitely been broken, it sat too high on his face, swollen up to gruesome proportions. It bled too, badly. His eyes were wide and fearful on Jien's approach, red and swollen with tears, he seemed to be far past the point of hysterics. He was hiccoughing madly and his breath came out spluttered and irregular.

Only one thing differed from the familiar picture of violence. This time, it wasn't Goyjo.

Jien's arrival scared the boy shitless, with great difficultly he attempted to scramble away. He scuttled backwards, one wrist painfully cradled to his chest. With a twinge of recognition he tried to conjure a picture of who the child could be, but came up blank. It occurred to him that the best thing to do would be to the kid home somehow or get hold of a parent or….

Jien was relived of this responsibility however, for, with more speed than Jien expected, the kid bolted and stumbled clumsily through the sparely scattered trees back towards the general direction of the schoolyard. Despite the heavy sobs and obvious injury, he decided not to follow, it seemed that he would have enough to deal with already.

He turned to Goyjo. The boy had already picked himself out of the underground which Jien had roughly tossed him into and his crimson locks, mixed with mud and blood hung matted across his eyes, he didn't budge. His arms by his sides, his tiny fists were clenched and his sharp intakes of breath were audible even over the pounding rain, he spat on the ground, a thin layer of blood stained his front teeth.

He looked inhuman. Which in truth, was exactly what he was.

The with a start as if he had just been awoken from a trance, Goyjo blinked, looked-up, stared at his brother and broke into a run. Goyjo was a little faster than Jien had expected, his spindly legs pumping for all they were worth he dodged through the trees with surprising dexterity. But even so he was limping and was no match for the adult that was so quickly on his tail. Even with the morning's drinks resting heavily on his stomach, Jien was after his half-brother in an instant. The rain water distorted his vision but the fleeing, red spirit was firm within his sights. Within 30 seconds Jien struck, grabbing the strap of Goyjo's vest and shifting his weight forward, he wrapped the other arm around the smaller rib cage and in a heavy tackle brought his struggling brother firmly down to the sodden earth.

"Jien, get off. Let go. Jien, fuck off!" The struggle continued. "You bastard, let go!"

Goyjo squirmed frantically, clods of dirt mingling with strands of blood red hair as he struggled for release.

"What the hell Goyjo? Look at me." Jien clasped the kid's shoulders and flipped him over so they sat face to face. "Why aren't you in school? Why did you run huh? Look at me. Did you see what you did to that kid's face? That's messed up Goyjo. Will you stop fucking moving?"

Grabbing the bare forearms, he pulled Goyjo up from the floor. The smaller boy seemed to calm but looked away from Jien's gaze in fierce defiance.

Jien gave his shoulder blades a firm shake.

"Don't fucking touch me!" With what could only be described as a shriek, Goyjo spat straight into Jien's face. A globule of spit and blood hitting the older boy's cheek.

Goyjo's eyes widened but he had no time to move. A sickening thwap resounded through the clearing and Goyjo hit the mud. He lay motionless for a moment, quite shocked, not by the force of the blow, it was not much harder than he was used to, but gormless in sheer surprise. He coughed and dumbly got to his knees and with equally muddy hands tried to wipe the dirt from his face with little success, only managing to worsen the mess.

It was this simple act of childish stupidity that infuriated Jien. And he exploded.

"I'm fucking sick of this. I'm sick of chasing you around and trying to get you into school every day of the week. You don't wanna go? Don't fucking go." He pointed an angry finger in the face of the startled boy, who had never known Jien so mad. " I don't give a shit anymore. If you wanna grow up knowing fuck all, that is fine with me." Then he couldn't stop himself and it all came pouring out. His voice cut through the battering wind, broken by what could have been tears in his tired, yellow eyes. "I work my ass off for you, I work 7 days a week for fuck-all. You think I wanted this. That I wanted all this shit. I never wanted his, I never wanted you." His face closed the gap between him and his half-brother. "You do what you fucking well want from now on."

He turned and marched towards the house, leaving Goyjo's lone figure crouching in the clearing. Now his brother had gone, the small boy couldn't hold back the tears, they mingled with the raindrops that pattered on his bruised and battered face. He sat there quiet for a moment, holding himself in a one-man hug, rocking gently on his haunches. His small chest heaved with anuish, his heart throbbed painfully in his chest, a pain more intense and lasting than the streak of red that had marked his face.

"I'm sorry Jien. Please Jian, I'm really sorry." Slowly and with some difficulty, Goyjo had trotted up to his older brother. He struggled to keep up to Jien's strides as the undergrowth thickened.

There was no reply. Jien kept the same pace, Goyjo fell into a small run.

"But it's dead hard and you said I'd make friends and I can't, I don't know what to do when I'm there. Please Jien. They chased me again, they were, they were saying all kinds of stuff and I got real angry and said all kinds of stuff right back and when they went for me I just grabbed hold of…I didn't know he was so young." His voice trailed off and he looked up hopefully at Jien's face, so torn yet firm that it didn't budge.

Goyjo swallowed and walked silently for a moment, twisting and pulling a long red length of hair in front of his face, his chest still heaving with sobs. Then with a very small and careful voice he grabbed firm hold of Jiens jacket sleeve, too firmly to shrug off again.

"She's gonna be so mad Jien. I didn't mean to do anything. Shes gonna…I didn't mean to do it….but she'll be so….she'll be really mad Jien. Please. "

He couldn't say it. Jien acknowledged. He couldn't say that his mom would probably beat the living daylights out of him when he came into the front room. But he knew it, he understood it.

"You can't cry Goyjo. Please, just stop crying." Goyjo looked up into Jien's face, the red mark where he had been hit throbbing. Both brothers stared into the other's eyes.

Then it was suddenly very hard for Jien to say anything else because a surge of emotion had begun to rise up in his gut and seemed so unfair that this should be his responsibility, that this should be his life. He couldn't help but know that if Goyjo hadn't been born, his father wouldn't have died caring for him, so he wouldn't have had support the household, work so often, his mother wouldn't have drank herself crazy and got so fucked up and he wouldn't have had to…. It seemed the longer Goyjo lived the worse things came and It wasn't fair and he didn't want it. He resented it, he simply and tragically couldn't help hating him.

Something passed between the brothers, something in Jien's face that communicated his grief, a weariness that Goyjo could only recognise as his burden. More than ever the young boy felt unwanted and in truth, he wasn't far wrong.

This feeling, with time, it will fade, wax and wane.

Goyjo let go of his brother's sleeve and they began the slow walk up to the house. They walked in silence, there wasn't really much to say.

It was at this point that Jien realised that a change was needed so desperately; something had to give. How would Goyjo turn out if this continued? He didn't like it, but Jien knew that Goyjo was already damaged, now, probably long beyond repair. As he had witnessed the savage beating of the younger boy, a lifetime of rage had flooded out of Goyjo, a rage so intense, so raw that it streamed out from the blood of his eyes, radiated like a beacon from his tiny form. Jien knew that he had to intervene, help the boy, he so desperately needed help. Take him into town and show him something of a normal childhood, do something to stem the flow of violence within the house. Take responsibility. Do something. He had to do more for Goyjo, even if it meant he would have spend more time in the house, more time with his mother. Even though he would suffer for it.

He placed a tentative arm on his brother's shoulder who did nothing to remove it. The tattered shirt that covered him had been ripped down the side seam, even underneath the loose fit of his own hand-me-downs he could see a child who treaded the fine line of near-starvation. He didn't look 8 years old, he looked ageless, a child without the privilege of childhood. Goyjo bit his lip nervously and looked up to his half-brother who smiled back weakly.

Things from then on did change. And Jien did suffer, of course.


	8. Chapter 8 Part 1

Chapter 8- Part 1

Her name was roughly chalked on the rotten wood panels of her door frame in crude thick lettering. The rain had long smudged out the last blurred character, but as Goyjo squinted he found he could just about make it out.

"Aunt JuJu" he mouthed.

"JuJin" Jien corrected, his tone sharper and more exasperated than he had intended it to be. "Everyone calls her Aunt, honoured Aunt." 

A flicker of bemusement crossed Goyjo's face as he looked back up at the door; the characters doubled and swayed and wouldn't stay still. A thick, heavy pain had long since rested behind his eyes and it ached to try and focus on anything for too long. He dropped his gaze.

"She won't answer to anything else." Jien continued, now more to himself than to his half-brother. His foot tapped upon the beaten earth impatiently.

"She's our last resort." He suddenly frowned and felt compelled to add, "Don't say anything to her yourself, alright? Remember?" 

Goyjo didn't't respond, with a quick nudge Jien repeated himself, louder this time but to the same effect. His eyes glazed and his expression oddly vacant, Goyjo stood warily, gently rocking back on his heels. The walk up the foothills had destroyed the remainder of his left sneaker, a naked foot peaked from underneath the jagged rubber toe, blacked by the damp muddy earth and now, quite numb to the harsh weather. It was a cool evening, it felt as if winter had never truly left them and Jien's light jacket, swamping Goyjo's meagre frame hadn't been nearly enough to stave of the cold. The hem only hung to his upper thigh and underneath a pair of Jien's old jeans had been tied around his waist with a makeshift belt, narrowly keeping his pants from falling down alltogether. 

Jien had heaved Goyjo up the mountain path in an awkward piggy-back ride stopping and starting for the best part of an hour, he stumbled up a seldom trod track that seemed to consist of only steep rock or thick, stodgy mud. Jien had felt the laboured breathing of his half brother on the back of his neck in irregular little gasps, he hardly weighed anything at all. As they had started to ascend Goyjo had a constant and trembling shiver and a heavy fever. Now he was still, he didn't seem to notice the cold at all.

He seemed to be getting worse.

Underneath his breath Jien offered up a silent and empty prayer to whoever in hell was listening, but the evening air was cool and silent and resounding as ever. An owl gave a solitary hoot somewhere amongst the trees marking the arrival of dusk and Jien gave a small shiver of his own. No response came from within the cottage before him; he stared down at his half-brother, his jaw tense with grating teeth. 

"If you fuck this up I don't know what the hell we're gonna do." Jien hastily knocked again, harder this time. Tiny flecks of moss clung to his rapping knuckles. 

Goyjo nodded weakly, a delayed reaction to a question he thought he might have heard. He stared down at his discoloured fingers, even his nicotine stained fingernails stood out shocking white against the yellow pigmentation that dyed his skin. A fresh wash of fear ran over the 11 year old and he pulled a strand of hair out of his pony-tail and played with it nervously. This caught Jien's eye. "What the hell?.." was all Goyjo got to hear before Jien cuffed the younger boy sharply round the ear. He yelped.

"What did I tell you? You gotta keep your hair hidden! Alright?" Goyjo's eyes swam and he gave out a whimper that could be "yes", "no" or more likely, "Fuck off." Jien ran a clammy hand through his own hair and inwardly hoped it had been the latter, a sign of improvement? Still, he held in his temper. 

"This is a long enough shot already. You know that, right" His voice softened a little and smiled a strained smile. "We gotta make sure you keep under-cover in this one bro. Its important okay?" 

Jien knelt down to his brothers level and intricately replaced the rogue strand under the blue woollen monstrosity of a hat he had stuffed Goyjo's hair into earlier that morning. The crimson eyes he stared into were bloodshot and unblinking, the yellow rings that lined them seeped effortlessly into the flushed palette of his cheeks. Again Goyjo nodded but Jien could only wonder whether he had even heard him.

Jien was unshaven, unwashed, he had neither slept or bathed in days. Quite frankly, he stank. The same clothes had rested on his back for the past week and he had no time nor inclination to change them. His hair had grown somewhat longer; it was greasy and he had roughly tamed it by shoving it behind his sharp youkai ears. In the semi-light dark shadows scored the young man's face and the bags of shadow that lined his features hung low and heavy under darting amber eyes. He looked crazed, demonic in the fading day. 

Jien licked his lips nervously and drew a long drag off his dwindling cigarette, before fiercely flicking the butt into the tall wet grass. He was too nervous to smoke, too nervous to speak, he stood and waited.

Though as bad as Jien looked, Goyjo was infinitely worse. He was ill and seriously so. A relentless thirst played upon his lips and they had cracked and bled in the evening chill, a slow stream of blood played on the edge of his jaw line, the flow wouldn't stop. He held arms fiercly clung to his torso, his hands lay flattened over his stomach as if holding in his very insides. He was nauseous and his stomach was either fluttering or throbbing or suffering with equel measures of both. He hadn't been sick for the past 20 minutes though, Jien noted with a twinge of relief. Hauling Goyjo up the mountain had become increasingly difficult as the urge to stop and throw up into the long grass had become a regular and excruciating event. 

The nausea had started 3 weeks ago, as the last of the snow had melted off the tiles of their poor, ailing house. Goyjo had tip-toed around his mother, slumped and drowsy over the dining table and cautiously approached the bubbling pot on the stove with a crafty anticipation. The thick smell of ramen turning fat and thick over the heat was usually enough to bring him running, yet that day the odour had made his stomach turn and his head swim and, quite unexpectedly, he had spontaneously threw up the contents of his stomach onto the kitchen table. 

His mother had woken, but the beating that following was called to a rapid halt as through tearful, swollen eyes he watched her fearfully backing away, expression struck in fear and revulsion. He had looked down onto the hardwood floor and there had been a terrifying spread of blood and vomit. 

Some time had passed and the house became empty and, fit to burst with shame, Goyjo had begun to slowly and methodically clean up the mess. The familiar stench of bleach had filled his nostrils with it's pungent clinical aroma and he had given it a liberal squeeze onto a wet rag. His zeal began to wane and the forward-back motion, as he ran the cloth over the floorboards, made his stomach protest with a loud churning groan. With a soft hicup Goyjo had learnt back onto the cabinet, wrapping his arms around himself in a loose hug. The floor went untouched as a fierce wrap-around ache throbbed in his lower back.

He had stayed there, unmoving until Jien had finally returned, when he had been half cajoled and half dragged into his bed. He had barely left it for 2 weeks. He had hardly eaten in that time but had clung onto his hi-lights with fierce regularity until those too left him sick.

It was at this point that Jien had realised, with a great reluctance, that Goyjo would have to see a doctor.


	9. Chapter 8 Part 2

A.N I'm on a roll. Expect part 3 very soon. Thankyou for all the kind the reviews. Oh and I've just started Beta-reading so I'm shamelessly promoting myself, if anyone is interested check out my Beta-profile.

Chapter 8, Part 2

The doctor had been Jien's first port of call.

The quaint red-brick building was an easy 20 minute walk from their home, downhill all the way but still, Goyjo had struggled. All the while, as the two brothers made slow and painful progress through the town, Jien cursed himself for only now taking Goyjo to see a professional. He had assumed that the illness would eventually go away on it's own and he supposed he could be forgiven for thinking this. Goyjo had only been sick once or twice in his whole life and even then it had never been serious, not by any stretch of the imagination. Jien picked up his step and Goyjo struggled to catch up. On the approach, he could see dying shreds of ivy cling to locked metal shutters and his heart gave a small, panicky flutter. The clinic was closed and probably would be for some time. He had been flatly informed by a the owner of the tobacconist across the road that the clinic's opening hours were more than erratic and depended solely on whether a doctor had been hired for the new season. It appeared that one hadn't.

Gon Mei lived in a small apartment than perched uneasily on top of the local grocers, it was a new-ish extension that would have had shoddy workmanship written all over if all the paint hadn't stripped off the walls after it's first winter. It could only be reached by tackling the iron wrought staircase that slithered around the back of the building; it swayed and groaned in even the lightest breeze and would have threatened collapse if thick patches of festering rust didn't somehow hold the ailing structure in a kind of order. The whole building had an unholy stink, a constant lingering stench of rotting vegetation, most of it, though not all, came from the grocers.

Mei's father was not exactly a vegetable, he could be best described as a stick of celery that has unprompted and horrific spasms of activity. Senility had not turned him into a racist, violent and disagreeable old man (he had been an accomplished pain in the ass for the whole of his existence), but now he was incontinent, unable to neither feed nor dress himself and was entirely dependant on his only living relative, his daughter; who he had treated poorly from the moment of her birth and had not let a little thing like senility upset the running trend of violence and cruelty within their household. He took his only delight in cursing, drinking, complaining, screaming, lashing out at objects/people and slowly and methodically shitting himself throughout the day. Worst of all, he wasn't even close to dying.

Mei occupied a position in the world that can only be described as voluntary slavery. Since her father's long and unpredictable slide into dementia, she had taken care of the house, earned the rent and performed her role well. She had not settled into a life of drudgery with ease and good grace, but had undertaken it with a feeling of duty and inevitability, her childhood had given her good impression of how little her future would come to and it was as if she had always known that this was the way her life would pan out before her. She was not yet twenty years old but she ran the home with the firm hand of an aging matriarch. What she did for her father could have earned her sainthood by itself, but when she wasn't wiping drool of his crotchety old face and avoiding his lazy, crippled swats, she was sewing and mending for cash, minding local children in the neighbourhood, cooking, cleaning and occasionally, sleeping with Jien. Occasionally being the word of focus here.

Perhaps what Jien liked most about Mei was that she did not demand much from him; she was not easygoing by nature, she had too much responsibility for that. But in terms of romance she was not greedy with his time and when they did see each other now, it was sweet, passionate and over very, very quickly. When her father was unusually quiet for an afternoon, Jien had often come around for a quick grope on her creaky, deflated mattress; sex in that quiet secretive way that was almost, but not quite, pleasurable.

They had understood each other once, when they had been a little younger and little more naive. They had met in a bar not two weeks before Jien's sixteenth birthday and they had shared a illicit beer with the intimate, giddy knowledge that neither of them should have been doing so. They had spent many penniless evenings wandering through the town hand in hand as lovers, stolen beers stacked by the side of the canal in a soft, warm, evening light. Smoking, laughing and, in a small way, confiding. Jien had told her more about his life than had been comfortable, he had told her about his half-breed half brother, his sick, mad mother and maybe that was what dragged them apart in the end. He had known too about Mai's senile, evil father and his what he had done and now, what Mai had to do for him. Perhaps it had been too much to share.

When Jien began to work full time the visits began to wane, when he took his third they stopped in all regularity. He saw her once every couple of months, rarely ever more.

Jien called at her house at around midday, Goyjo had been far too sick to climb the staircase and had waited at the bottom as Jien clambered up with some difficulty. Mei answered the door almost immediately, the many locks clicked open with a hurried impatience.

She was not an ugly girl by any stretch of the imagination, but she had aged quickly and stood with the solid sloppiness of a middle aged house-wife. A rather stained grey apron was double tied around her waist and successfully hid a pair of rather shapely legs and small inoffensive breasts. Her feet and back troubled her and it gave her an uncomfortable gait, but when she stood upright you could see a proud, thin neck that was delicate, almost fragile. She had developed the kind of unusual skinniness that develops from poor food and little of it, but in her hips there was a maternal spread that that would undoubtedly slide into loose flabbiness by either middle age or after her first kid, whichever came first. She wore no make-up, though she had reason to want it, she could not afford it; her complexion was naturally rosy and had once been troubled by mild teenage acne, but it had evened out quite well into adulthood. There was a small collection of scars by her jaw line, a crowd of unsightly pockmarks as mementos of her adolescence, but aside from that, she had quite sharp, clean-cut features. She had cut her hair herself into a short, boyish crop and beneath uneven tuffs of dark hair, pointed her large, Youkai ears that stuck out in a cute and rather comic sort of way. They had once been pieced with use of a safety pin and it showed, they hadn't quite healed correctly, but they could be overlooked, as a striking and prominent S-shaped Youkai birthmark resided on her left temple. It gave her a rather exotic air, it was the only aspect of herself that she still admired.

Mai gave the overall impression that she had once had the potential for beauty, but over time and circumstance it had long since been worn out of her. Jien had warmed to her face and had an soft, sweet affection for her that he long since stopped trying to understand.

"Hey," She ripped off the headscarf that had been roughly tied around her temple and gave her short, bristly hair a furious ruffle, if was clear that she had not been expecting visitors and her voice did not disguise her impatience. "What is it Jien?"

He had carefully gone over the conversation he planned to have in his mind a dozen times, as they had left the clinic and made short trek to the centre of town; but as she stood there, tapping her foot with in angry rhythm, he dropped the bullshit in half an instant.

"I need to leave Goyjo with you for while." Jien noticed that Mai had begun to open her mouth in a shape that strongly resembled a resounding 'No' and continued right though it. "He's sick, real sick. I tried to get to the doctor but it was closed. I need to find another but I can't take him with me, he can't walk so good."

"Goyjo's with you?" Mai stepped out of the doorway and hastily closed the door behind her, her voice lowered in an instinctive cautiousness, "My dad is awake and about. He has his wits about him. Don't ask me to let the kid in, Jien, you know that I can't."

Goyjo had visited Mai's home once or twice before, when he had been much smaller. It had been when Jien was young and headstrong and would have happily faced hell or high water to see her. When it was particularly unsafe at home Mai had uneasily let him in for an afternoon when her fanatic father was docile and predominantly asleep. While she and Jien kissed and cuddled on the couch in that insufferable teenage fashion, Goyjo had parked himself in front of the old back and white TV and watched to his hearts content. There had never been a set at home and he would eagerly tag along with his brother when the opportunity arose, despite the reluctance Mai would undoubtedly feel to let him in the house.

She had explained once. "It isn't that I don't want you here kiddo. We have fun eh? It's just that my dad aint so well and he, well, he don't take so kindly to red hair if you know what I mean."

Goyjo had nodded and had known what she meant, from a young age he noticed that a lot of people didn't take too kindly red hair, red eyes. Embarrassed, he had thought about not going with Jien next time he asked him, but he never had the resolve to refuse. Mai gave him that strange tingly feeling in his heart, when he lay awake at night he found his mind wandering to her face, her eyes, the way she walked, her sharp, crooked smile. When she gave his hair a rough tussle or sloped her hand around his shoulders in that friendly, carefree way, he couldn't't help but feel all warm and soft in the pit of his stomach, stone-heavy and light as a feather all at the same time.

The illusion had been firmly squashed on Goyjo's thirteen birthday when had seen her small, unremarkable obituary in the local newspaper. He hadn't been able to read any further than her name and the road on which she had lived, but as he carefully traced Gon Mai, Upper Room, Eastern Way he could not help but imagine that the two room squalor above the grocers, the thick smell of lemon rind and rotting cabbage leaves that permeated the thin walls of their tiny flat. The hoarse hacking cough of Mai's father from his locked room and the fearful and dutiful look in her eyes as she fed him, dressed him, lived and abided with him.

But that wasn't yet.

Mei ungracefully descended the staircase, stomping barefoot on the cold, damp iron with a crafty knowledge for it's tricks. She approached Goyjo with a little unease. She hadn't seen him for a couple of years and was shocked, not only by his hot, flushed face and feverish little shivers, but also by how tall he seemed to have suddenly grown in such a short space of time. He was far from the 7 year old that had sat so close to her TV with those wide, unblinking blood-red eyes, that reflected the fuzzy, black and white picture with such simple pleasure, absolute rapture.

"How you doing kiddo?" She leant to a crouch and he blinked back at her weakly. She noticed his eyes were bloodshot, yellowish even, in the poor light and couldn't't help noticing a very round purple bruise on the left side of his cheek. A jumble of purple and green flashed out of his discoloured skin, 'Some things never change,' she thought bleakly and forced a sideways sort of grin as Goyjo seemed to rouse.

He inwardly blushed and let out a squeak that could have been. "Okay."

"I wanna cig." He began and Mai gave a wry disbelieving chuckle.

"He smokes Jien?"

A little guilty Jien leant back onto the fire escape and grinned. "Yeah."

The smile from Mai's face dropped, but only a little as she pointed to the cigarette packet hanging out of Goyjo's front pocket. "Highlights, Jien. Just like you."

A silence passed between then, long and painful until a short, hacking cough resounded from the flat and shook them out of their stupor.

"You're not kidding Jien." Mai pressed a cool hand to Goyjo's burning forehead and winced at the throbbing heat. "He needs a healer"

"They won't see him Mai."

"Because he's…." Mai did not say it out loud, but she knew and she gave a slight nod. "They might, or they might not."

"I can't leave him at home, mom isn't well…it isn't safe for him right now. You know Mai"

"You know there is no guarantee you'll be able to find a doctor in the next town over, right?" Mai piped up, she tapped her fingernails on the plastic sheen of her apron.

Jien gave a sick, slight nod and looked at her painfully. "Yeah, I know. But where else?"

"Take him to Aunt JuJin." The thought popped into her head without warning and she elaborated with more hope than the situation warranted. "She might, she might just see him. She's done stranger things."

The thought flickered through Jien's mind as a possibility, a long shot, but a possibility all the same. It was a shorter journey up the foothills to the ancient Youkai than to some human clinic out of town. He could take Goyjo with him, carry him if he had to.

After a moment Jien learnt down to his brother's side and said, slowly and carefully."We've gotta walk a bit futher now kid, can you stand?"

Goyjo did, slightly unsure on his feet, he wiped away the moisture from his watering eyes. Not crying.

"Thanks Mai." Jien resigned, "I guess."

"I would leave, Jien, If I were you." In the dimming light her eyes shone with a sudden sincerity, she smiled, softly, an old familiar childhood smile. "You can't stay here with her and the kid forever, it's gonna kill you. Somethin's gotta give Jien."

He swallowed and ran an anxious hand through his hair looking first to the floor and then back to Mai who shivered in the evening chill. She began to back up the staircase, clinging a little too tightly to the rusted bar. It left flecks on copper on her sleeve and they picked up the light in tiny bloodlike flickers.

"Could you ever leave your old man eh?" Jien began. "Could you?" He said it almost with malice, as if it was his own justification.

Mai closed her eyes gave a short, trembling sigh. Jien could only imagine what she could see behind her eyelids that must have forced her to say.

"No, you know I couldn't. Jien." Her face was aged, tired. She smiled once more, this time laced with more exasperation than sadness. "I know that…." She stopped herself, but only just.

Jien took Goyjo's hand who was by now, too weak to resist. They stumbled over the uneven cobbled alley and began the long thankless trip up the mountainside. Jien's features were only more resolute.

"Keep him warm." She shouted back down the staircase as the distance between them began to widen. "He'll catch his fucking death wandering around like that and get him some water too or he'll dehydrate."

"Take care Jien." She said, but he was out of her range and her voice had long since lowered to a whisper.

A jumble of curses, threats and nonsense reverberated from within the house, it was the constant sound of her father needing and wanting and hating. She cast a look to the brother's fading silhouettes as they turned out of the alley and up to the main street. She blinked away salty, unapologetic tears and slowly, re-entered the house.


	10. Chapter 8 Part 3

Chapter 8, Part 3

Jien wasn't sure how long he had stood there, anxiously waiting for a response from within.

He could sense that some time had passed, half an hour perhaps, but as the air cooled and his ankles ached in protest, he grimly acknowledged that it could have been considerably more. A significant pyre of cigarette butts had collected by his feet and he kicked them off the front path in idleness; he knew the healer was inside, a gentle candlelight flushed from underneath the doorway. The soft red-ish glow of a dimly lit room cast a flickering outline over the wooden frame. Jien shifted from one foot to the next, with a tense yet steadyrhythm. Now it was simply a question of whether or not she would answer the door.

Dispite himself, he knocked again; the rapid succession left tiny pin pricks of blood on the damp, wooden panels. He stared down at his hands with genuine surprise to find that the tight skin over his knuckles had begun to split and bleed, a short, crimson smear mingled in with the dirt and grime. He flexed his fingers; they were stiff and unwilling yet strangely pain free; the encroaching cold had numbed his aching limbs. He raised his hand to knock again but found that he had stopped himself; he let his hand fall to his side.

Some time passed and the first waverings of doubt began to play on Jien's mind. He had no way to tell how exactly how much time their ascension up the mountain path had taken, or how long he had lingered at Mei's or even the passing moments he had simply been standing here on the hill top. Goyjo had folded himself up, cross legged on the ground sometime ago. He had let out a soft, sobbing groan as he sat, but had fallen silent long since; his eyes lay half closed in a strange, restless sleep.

Curled up against the base of a tree stump, Goyjo seemed to be nothing more than a tangle of limbs. Whatever weight he had, he had lost; he seemed to have barely enough muscle to hold himself upright; his face had developed that pinched, angry look of starvation. His breath came out in husky little gasps, either he was having trouble breathing or it hurt to do so, each singular wheeze struggled to escape from barely parted lips. The edges of his mouth had developed a nasty trio of sores and around them the skin cracked and bled and wept. He was glossy with sweat and even it the semi-light it was possible to see the yellowish tinge he had developed. But worse were his eyes, the iris was still a burning scarlet, but now creeping little blood vessels had begun to work their way into the ivory white.  
It seemed his eyes were swimming in blood.

Jien found it was easier just not to look.

He cast a quick glace to the town below. The woodland, at this height, was a little thinner and more sparse than usual for the season, it allowed the steady glow of artificial lamplight; the gentle hum of distant nightlife. Small crowds were still congregating on the main roads and meant that on this busy Friday evening the bars were still open. It was 2am at the very latest. Was it time to try and make it to the next town? He had made it in less than 5 hours once, he thought with a strange, desperate optimism; Jien gave his shoulders an a pre-emptive stretch, but found his muscles tight and sore. He cast a short, pained glance down to Goyjo.

The door opened quite suddenly and Jien took an small, instinctive step backwards. There was darkness, it seemed as if the room before him was cast into more shadow than the evening woodland. A wave of scent flooded his keen senses; at first, the musky thickness of moss and decay, the predicable smell of a small, damp home, but then something else. He inhaled and thick curls of smoke spilled from within, the warm pungent scent of burning essence.

Jasmine; he recognised the fragrance immediately. It seemed as if a light had been turned on inside his head and vividly, a wash of sights and sounds and memories began to bombard him.

_Short springtime gatherings in the semi-dusk, men sat round barrels and crates, thick work boots collected in heaps by fractured doorways, the smell of pipe tobacco and cheap cigars. Holidays, the dead stone temple filled with life, banners and sweat tang of dripping peach flesh. Hanging paper lanterns, emblazoned with red and orange, patches of smouldering black from melted candles. Drawn open shop windows, sunshine spilling into dusky rooms, cheap candies flung into rabbles of skinny children, the shouts of rough play. The soft glow of a funeral pyre, the scent of ash and wetness of tears. The mourning._

It was a childhood smell; neither good nor bad, that brought back that emotionless memories, neutral snapshots of his own life. Nothing substantial, nothing that had the power to move him. They were too far away, too long ago.

His mother had often burned incense; potent and highly experimental Indian mixtures that filled the house with a sweet, exotic smoke; it would rise to the ceiling and linger around the light fixtures where it would stay until it became too stale and familiar, to be replaced with the next anticipated new scent. It was a cheap pleasure. As far as Jien knew, his mother had not bought incense for any reason in particular, the house had once had a small stone shrine in the back garden, but he could not remember it ever being used or even what had ever happened to it over the years. It occurred to him that she must have bought it for the simple reason that she liked it. Which in itself felt bizarre.

It semmed to him that these memories must be of his very early childhood, certainly before his father's death for his mother had been forced to stop burning incense when she began to take on laundry. He remembered that she had received complaints about the smell, that the odour clung to the sheets when they were returned. It seemed strange to see an early image of his mother in the back of his mind, when a more recent and disturbing picture had long since developed. Her hair had been shorter then, an exotic Youkai blonde that she kept combed his a rough, wavy bob. Her fringe she would always cut herself and he could clearly see an image of her squinting into a handheld mirror by he bathroom door, a pair of nail scissors expertly snipping away through a set of polished sharp nails.

The more he inhaled, the sharper the memories seemed to become. The air itself had thickened, but soon enough the cool night air began to diffuse the aroma and quite suddenly the hazy, drunken feeling began to pass. Jien took a deep breath of clean, icy air and stepped into the doorway. As he did it seemed all the words that he had constructed during the wait had left him, the space behind his eyes was aching from the memories and now his mind only felt sluggish and heavy. Youkai magic? He wondered, the long wait had numbed his apprehension of JuJin but quite suddenly he felt a sick little twinge of fear in his stomach.

Moonlight spilled onto the dirt floor and threw the room into a hazy semi-light, woodland shadows cast themselves upon Jien's form and although a series of candles burned within, their flames were small and weak and could not fill the expanse of the room.

"Sha Jien" A voice resounded from the semi-darkness and with slow and deliberate step Aunt JuJin stepped into the moonlight. "You are persistent?"

It wasn't as much of a question as a statement, but still there was not a drop of humour or friendliness in her tone. Her voice was husky, low and had the smooth ring of a youngish girl, but it was overly formal and old fashioned in practice.

The power surrounding JuJin was like the blue heat in the very centre of a flame, it licked the very surface of her skin with short, controlled bursts. Jien was not overly familiar with magic but even his inexperienced senses could feel the tendrils of her chi thread themselves into the very air itself. Her age was indeterminable, the same youkai magic that that pulsed through her lithe, sleek form kept her young and beautiful. Her clothing however, betrayed the illusion; her dress was traditional and overly ornate. It spoke of past centuries and long disowned traditions.

The name, Aunt JuJin was an honorific title. As far as anyone knew, it was not a family or even a clan name, the term 'Aunt' was one not developed out of affection but rather an unhealthy amount of fear. She was a woman who was respected and feared by youkai population of the town and simply feared by those that were human. The patch of land she owned was included in no charter or deed, but she had commanded the lofty view over-looking the town without question for more years than anyone cared to remember. She offered her services as a healer and had done so since the dissolution of her clan. Her nomadic life had ended long ago and despite her healing prowess, her magic stank of a darker and more deadly source.

Sumire had visited 'Aunt' JuJin not long after her husband's death and what she had received there must have given her solace, for she soon made the journey twice, sometime three times a fortnight. Jien had been young, how young he wasn't sure and, unaware of his mother's sickness, he could only remember long winter evenings alone watching an infant Goyjo scream and wail in the confines of his cot. On those nights he had sometimes slipped into the room and held his younger brother, rocked him until his cries began to fade and soften. Sat cross-legged in the crib, Goyjo resting against his chest, the child would sometimes quieten, but Jien did not know the first thing about what a baby needed and had no idea how to stop the tears. Often, instead, he would shut all the doors to block out the piecing wail and wait for his mother on the back step, hands firmly pressed over his ears as Goyjo screamed fruitlessly within. He remembered the panic he had felt when she did not come home until morning and the bitter longing to shut his little brother up so he could just get a little sleep.  
It had seemed like such a basic want, something he should have been entitled to.

The oh-so generous 'aunt' charged twice what he earned in a mouth, not counting the price of the various ointments and salves that his mother had greedily purchased during her visits. He suspected, with a great deal of bitterness, that his mother's 'healing' had gobbled up the last of her savings and had been abandoned when she could no longer pay for her treatment.What could this woman have prescribed for his mother to fix her?  
He could only wonder, Sumire had never spoke of her treatment. It was when she had run out of money for the healer that she had begun seriously drinking, the numbness it brought was the same sort of relief that JuJin had prescribed, but convinient, a mere fraction of the price.

"Yes," He answered, though he could only manage a gasp. He realised quite suddenly that he hated this woman with his entire being, his voice shook slightly and he tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

"You bring Hanyou into my house, Sha Jien? My house of healing? Of purity?" The air cooled another couple of degrees, Jien was not perturbed.

"Please, honoured Aunt," Jien bowed to the waist and stayed there. He felt the words spill out more readily of his horizontal form "He's real sick. He can't eat, he has a fever, his skin..."

There was a silence and intrepidly Jien began to straighten, JuJin had covered the distance between them in an instant, her bare feet padding soundlessly on the dirt floor. She cast a short look to the mongrel child hovering fearfully at her doorway, her lips curled in a cruel smirk.

"He is young, I cannot disagree with that. And he is ill. Very ill. I recommend...", her eyes flickered over Goyjo's face, the rounded human ears, canines that could almost pass as unremarkable. She let out a short barking laugh, "...that you take him to a human doctor."

"I can't there aint one here yet." Jien rose, ever so slightly, his polite tone began to dissolve, but his eyes remained focused at the ground.

He tried to even his voice, "I've tried the other healers, they wouldn't even look at him."

JuJiin tilted back her head, she looked Jien over with a critical eye.

"This is none of my concern Sha Jien. Go home to your mother."

Jien stood upright, the rejection seemed more bitter than he had imagined. JuJin had been a long shot, Mei's suggestion had seemed ridiculous at first, but a long and difficult journey up the rocky pathways had suddenly forced all his hopes upon her. His mouth opened in protest, but even now the air was heavy and cold and it seemed to have taken away all of his breath.

"Please, we walked an hour to get here." His voice had become a whisper and Jien could never remember feeling so helpless and humble in his life. It was not in his nature to be either. He stood straight but his eyes fell to JuJin's feet.

"Well, my child, he is certainly in no condition for walking" She let out a wry chuckle and fell into a rocking chair in the far corner of her room. Dropping with a serpent's grace, she ran her fingernails over the split and rotting armrests with steady, rapid taps. "You ask too much." She shook her head quite slowly and looked into the fellow Youkai's eyes. "I suggest you leave"

"Tell me what's wrong with him then eh?" Jien felt himself begging, "You don't have to touch him, you don't have to do anything. Just tell what's wrong and I get whatever he needs myself."

She let out the same ugly laugh and it aged her.

"You are a desperate man Sha Jien," She stood, her body slithered fluidly out of her seat as if the very air beneath her propelled her form. Her eyes flashed, the striking Youkai amber locked with his own and a slight, stretched smile appeared on her lips. "No, you are just a boy yet, are you not? Perhaps not yet twenty years old? How far there is left to go for you. Not even begun. The stink of sex ages you, Sha Jien"

Jien's head snapped up and a foul, base anger swan through him. A snarl played in his throat but he forced in down. There was too much at stake to loose his temper now and even then, whether or not he realised it, the power pulsing through her ancient form overwhelmed his own with such ferocity he could hardly move without feeling her chi propel itself around his limbs. An invisible and terrifying force.

"Sha Jien, you are un-clean. You dishonor your race." The leap was startling and in a moment she was on top of him. Her hands clamped down upon his and she pinned him with ease on the dirt floor. Her breath was foul, the rotten meat of a decaying cadaver, a aged smell. Her coverings slipped around her waist, cascading layers of vivid embroidered silk exposing her bare, skeletal chest. Her breast bone poked through tight discoloured skin, the scarred flesh of the battlefield marring her serpentine form. It seemed that there were wounds that even her magic could not heal. Her tongue ran over her puckered, reddened lips revealing the fierce canines that lay beneath, as if relishing a particular sweet and pleasurable taste. With her neck twisted up to the sky she rubbed her body up against his own;

"Is this how you hold her Sha Jien?" Her voice was soft, a sultry whisper. "Is this how she squeals for you?"

With a grind she brought her hips to his own and from her throat a gasp of pleasure escaped her lips. It was his mothers voice, a smoker's rasp enveloped in guilt and need and pleasure. She brought her face up her his own, as if to steal a kiss...

_Empty bottles left around the kitchen table, congrgating by the bedroom door, clustered and huddled upon the back step; gangs of twos and threes, groups of nine and ten, the ghostly aroma of spirts, the yeasty stench of beer, a discarded, disgrunteled army of liquor marches through the house, their labels are unreadable, torn with sharp, vengeful fingernails. No varnish, no red (blood) nail varnish. Scarlet is for (blood and) whores ("Su, her name was Aniko, I called her Aniko,"), nice girls don't wear red.  
Smoke rising from a hijacked saucer, wedding china ("not worth a fortune, but I suppose it's something to save for the grandchildren, something to keep nice, put it on the top shelf won't you Ren?") streaked with ash and drowned in tears ("she got pregant Su, she died, I took the kid home").  
A Stark cavernous body ("His name is Goyjo"), skin and bone united in hate ("No ophanage, please Su, I wouldn't wish that on anyone let alone my own..."), a gaping hole, a starving woman.  
Two jagged lines, ("Mom, what are you...?") two flaps of skin ripped open ("Mom, what the fuck are you doing to yourself!!") into two gaping wounds (Mom, please, put it down, Mom please, we can talk about this...just..."), two desperate loud and screaming cries for help.  
A teatowel saved her life, (masking tape "No Jein, I'm, I just wanna die Jien!") and a teatowl bandage save her life. ("O Jien, you've saved my life, I could have...I wanted to...but now you've saved me.")__  
A careless innocent gesture, a tired desperate act. Parched lips curled into a lustful O ("Oh plese Jien I need you"), a passionless ("Please wont you") kiss, an embrace born from pity ("Mom, I do love you, you know I do,) thick gooey (Lies) , two figures kneeing hand in hand upon a blood stained duvet both eager to avoid more from spilling.  
A hungry touch, a call of ("Oh, Oh yes) sufffering love, long sharp Youkai fingernails that scoop up flesh and hair, trembling bodies, A steady thump, headboard and wall in union, (Oh touch me, oh yes!") a bargain, an ghastly act of protection. ("Goyjo")  
A shiver, a deap and profound shame. Yet pride, a strange shameful pride. _

...But the kiss didn't come, a clawed hand caught his jaw with a swift, steel grip. JuJin's eyes bore into his own, amber upon amber, powerful upon the weak.

"Incest." The word slid out as a hiss, "Your crime is an unnatural one and I can smell it." A smile played upon her lips as she inhaled long and deep above his mouth.

"I can smell the sin on you. Sha Jien." She placed her hands over his heart, one laced over the other, as if she was feeling for each rapid beat. "The Hanyou are an ill omen, you are unfortunate because you let it live. You have brought your fate upon yourself."

Paralysed, Jien began to tremble as she lifted herself off him and he once again found he could move. In the absence of the incredible weight, he scrambled to his feet, shaken, he began to back away from her. But she no longer appeared to notice him. He almost began to protest, to defend himself but he couldn't find any words, his body would not obey him. His skin throbbed where she had grabbed his forearms, he clutched at them but the skin burned and reddened under his grip. He lowered himself down to his haunches, gasping for breath, he glanced towards the door.

Goyjo was no longer behind him.

There was a flash of panic behind his eyes, with a wild, unnerving stagger he turned from the woman and flung himself into the night. His eyes scanned the horizon, manically darting through the undergrowth. His heart pounded in his ears; the day had fully turned to night and even with his sharp eyesight he could not sense where his brother had gone. A fresh gulp of panic hit his throat and suddenly retched onto the path. Sick with fear.

Goyjo had collapsed not a couple of yards down the mountain path. He didn't know why he had suddenly fled, he had felt himself backing out the doorway, as if the room itself had was rejecting him. He had staggered, bewildered, down the track, he had fallen and hadn't got up.


End file.
